Decking the Halls

I admit, I love Christmas decorations but not as much as my husband. He can't wait to put the Christmas tree up even if that means mid-November. Since we were having Thanksgiving at our house, I felt we needed to honor Thanksgiving properly and still have some pumpkin and fall decor out.

I did cave and let him get the Christmas tree out a few days before Thanksgiving and start setting it up. Since moving to the new house, it wasn't as easy to decorate since everything was going to be in a new place and we needed more decorations. It's amazing how our 7 1/2 foot tree looked so large in our last house but it looks so small in our new house! We both decided we needed to invest in a new tree, but not this year. Unfortunately, I don't have a good picture of the tree! But you can somewhat tell from this picture (and notice the snow outside!)

Early Christmas Present!

Every year for Christmas, my dad makes my brother's and I a piece of furniture, anything we want. Over the years, we have realized how fortunate we are to have someone so close to us that not only enjoys making furniture but has the skill. Purchasing furniture is EXPENSIVE and most of it is pretty much crap. This year, Doug, Billy and I all moved into new houses, so you can imagine we all pretty much knew right away what we wanted.

Our living room pre-Christmas present.

Thanksgiving

This year for Thanksgiving, Mom, Dad and Doug all came to Terre Haute to celebrate! Billy and Megan were at her parents for the holiday. Having to share holidays and not always seeing everyone is one of the hardest parts about growing up and traditions changing, but we do the best we can to make it work.

This was my first time hosting Thanksgiving and I'm glad there was a only a small crowd! We baked a small ham and turkey breast. The bones and caucus is NOT for me! Mom also taught me how to make her mother's dressing which was surprisingly easy despite drying loaves of bread for the week and having the kitchen have a weird yeast smell.

I do have to brag on Doug and his fruit salad with a champagne sauce. It was delicious and absolutely beautiful. Although he gave me the recipe, I haven't had the chance to make it yet, but I fully indent to try it out sometime.

While Mom and I were in the kitchen cooking, Matt and Dad hung some Christmas wreaths on the front of the house marking the first of decorations to go up!

I loved having Mom and Dad down for a few days and Doug there for Thanksgiving. I hope everyone had a wonderful time with their families!

Beach Vaca...Again!

The weekend following the Larry Bird events, Matt and I headed to Florida for a much needed vacation! While they were deicing the airplane on the runway, I realized it was a much needed escape from the frigid weather marking winter. We are fortunate that his family has a condo in Ft. Myers that we can use, which really cuts down on the cost of a get away! However, we figured it had been since January of 2012 since we had last visited.

Larry Bird

I'm sure everyone has heard of the guy named Larry Bird. He's a basketball legend. Did you know he went to Indiana State University? This fall, a statue cast in bronze was erected in front of Hulman Center of Larry Bird. This statue, along with a huge scholarship dinner is what kept my jets burning in high gear this fall!

"Starting Line up" to kick off the evening!

Beach Vaca

Every fall is crazy around the office at work. The students are back on campus, events start back in full swing and Homecoming is right around the corner. This year for Homecoming, I was in charge of Tent City, which is a large tailgate area (only on Homecoming weekend) where all the colleges, some departments on campus and mostly greeks have tents for alumni gathering. This year we had 61 organizations put in tents and my job was to organize all the chaos. I was so happy to have a get-away planned, less than a week after Homecoming I headed to Florida for a girls trip!

Me - Abbe - Jaylan - Bernice at Cirque du Soleil La NouBa

Bonge's

Getting everyone together to celebrate birthdays, much less any holiday is becoming increasingly harder, which I absolutely hate! In September we all got together to celebrate mom and I's birthdays. We all love the atmosphere and food at Bonge's Tavern and decided to take a chance at getting a table, after all it was a beautiful fall day!

Two Months!?

Where has the time gone!? It's been almost two months since I have written a post. I've often thought, "I should really blog tonight", but somehow haven't been able to get it done! There has been so much going on lately and I've got lots of fun things to share. We've celebrated birthdays, enjoyed the Colts back in season, met new babies, been on vacation and I've completed two major events at working including Homecoming and a huge scholarship dinner and statue dedication honoring Larry Bird.

So brace yourself! The creative juices are flowing and here comes a plethora of life updates from the Roman's!

Where do we go from Here?

Last week we met with our builder for the last time to go through the final bill from the house construction. It was a huge relief to finally get him paid for the overages (which didn't break the bank :) and close the chapter of home building. That's not to say there isn't still a long list of things we want to do around the house, but as far as contractors in and out, we are done!

Bar stools!

Little by little, we are purchasing the odds and ends to tie everything up in our house. If Matt had it his way, we would have just bought everything at once and been down with it. However, I need time to think about things and find the perfect item to fill a space. Not to mention cash flow!

And they're Baaackk!

It's move in weekend on campus, which means downtown is bustling with a lot more people and a lot of lost drivers that aren't quite sure if they are going the right way on all the one ways!

We've Been Roman

Roman, Roamin', Roaming....However you look at it, our summer has been super busy! I can't believe it's the end of July and before we know it, it will be football season! (yippee!!)

Since moving in Memorial Day weekend, we have spent almost every waking moment after work going through boxes, deciding where to hang pictures, where lamps should go and of course my favorite - ORGANIZING every cabinet, shelf, closet etc.

We did spend one weekend in June at the lake house and got our minds away from the house for a little bit, which was so nice. The lake is Matt's happy place and I'm happy we were able to spend some time there before June was gone!The other weekends in June were spent traveling for weddings and Celebrating Matt's 30th Birthday!

The undies cookies were my fav!

I drove to Hooper, Nebraska with my friend Kim (who grew up there) for her bachelorette party. The party was in Lincoln, where the University of Nebraska is located. We had an awesome weekend! Kim got to meet Kenny Bell at breakfast the next morning, which didn't really strike me, but football, I mean Nebraska Football is some sort of religion or cult following up there! We did drive by Memorial Stadium and I must say, I was ready for college football to start!

I flew home from Omaha on Father's Day, cutting it close to my flight time due to College Baseball World Series traffic. Matt picked me up in Indy and we jetted to Doug's to see dad. Wednesday, Matt and I left for Nebraska with Justin (the groom).

We had a great road trip stopping at Antique Archelogy in LeClaire, Iowa. We had dinner in Des Moines at a burger joint Justin has always wanted to stop at.  Zombie Burger was awesome and very interesting! I had the White Trash Zombie which basically had everything fried on it. Needless to say, I felt like I needed to go for a long run after eating instead of getting back in the car for 5 more hours.

We spent the next few days and the rest of the weekend in Nebraska helping Kim and Justin finalize all the wedding details! We had a great time and are so happy we could be apart of your special day! After a great night of dancing at the reception, Matt and I got up early Sunday to start the dreaded drive home.

June 28th was Matt's 30th birthday and we celebrated by having a party at our house! It was fun to show everyone around and even more fun to be able to have 35 people in our house at the same time without feeling like you were scrunched like sardines! As usual everyone gathers in the kitchen, but I didn't even mind because it was so spacious!

July has been marked with more weddings and birthdays. For the 4th we went to the lake and although it was pretty cloudy out, it didn't rain, so that was a bonus in our eyes. Saturday I had a wedding I worked and Sunday we went to Frankton to celebrate dad's 62nd birthday!

Happy Birthday DH!

Later that week, Matt and I headed to Knoxville for my cousin Lindsay's wedding. We had a wonderful time and it was great to see everyone. We event got lucky and got to see some of dad's family the day after. The wedding was on Friday, and we spontaneously decided to drive back Saturday evening, which gave us all day Sunday to be home - we were so happy with our decision to drive back!

This past weekend I worked another wedding on Saturday, which alwasy makes the weekends pass by so quickly. I'm so happy we don't have any plans for this coming weekend! We are both looking forward to some relaxation time!

Fortunately, the August calendar looks a little less full and maybe we can get back to finishing up things around the house, but I'm guessing many of our projects are going to be pushed off to the fall or winter!

The Shop: Part II

These pictures and post are a long time coming. It seems I can't pull myself away from going through "stuff" and organizing every closet, drawer and space in general to sit down and blog. Thankfully, we finally have wireless internet which does make the task a little easier.

I guess it's been almost 2 weeks ago now that mom and dad came down to bring the cabinet doors for the hearth room built-ins and the door and drawers for the 'chaise cabinet'. These are both pieces that we worked on in the shop in addition to our closets.

Hearth Room

And then there was ONE!

I have had on my list for a number of days now "blog". But somehow, I just can't seem to get around to it. There has been A LOT of activity lately and it is with great joy, excitement and relief that I tell you we only have one mortgage! Within two weeks we closed on Matt's condo (5/24) and closed on my house (6/3). In the meantime, we moved into our new home and have been living there for a week now. It feels so surreal.

It was a little sad leaving our little house. We really enjoyed our neighbors next door and especially their 5 year old son, Nolan. We had a lot of great memories in that house and loved the climbing rose bush! It was being choked out by poison ivy and we brought it back! So gorgeous and just really made the patio area that Matt and my dad worked so hard on. But the couple that bought the house is super excited and I think will love the house as we did.

T-Minus 9 Days

I still don't know when we will be in our new house, but it occurred to me yesterday that regardless we have to be out of the house we live in by May 29...that's 9 days!! My worry way back of ending up homeless might actually be true! Although our builder says everything will be ready by Friday, I am having my doubts.

There is a Light!

We are getting close, really close. I think it's time to start the countdown. The only problem is I'm not sure when the end will be, although I can see the finish line! We got news today that Matt's condo should close next week and we are still on track to close on the house we live in on May 29. Let's just say I am starting to get really nervous and stressed about the move. I thought I was going to be able to start moving a little at a time to the new house, but it doesn't look like it will pan out that way! The picture at the right is of Justin, Kim, myself and Matt eating the "first meal" at the new house. We are sitting on the back patio eating Jimmy Johns on a rainy Saturday afternoon, of course it was just a lunch break for the boys while they worked on electrical.

The Shop

Dad's shop has been extra busy this spring. We have spent a number of weekends in Frankton working on a few different projects for the house. To be honest, Dad and Matt do most of the work, but the last few times, I have been assigned sanding, the best job (sarcasm). However, sanding is one of the most important jobs!

A Splash of Color

As I have mentioned, picking out paint was one of the hardest things for me to do. Being the details person I am, I was constantly thinking about the flow of the color and how it would look as you stood in one room looking into the next. After a lot of stressing, Matt and I decided on colors with the help of a friend who has an interior design background and owns the cutest boutique, Modern Charm, in downtown Terre Haute. The picture at the right doesn't really do the colors much justice, but as you can see, we chose various shades of grey (not 50, however).

Wanted: More Hours, Less Decisions

Whoa! Where has the time gone!? The last few weeks have been busy! As you can tell, its been awhile since I've written anything (with the exception of the sold post)! The last few weeks have been slow in progress with the house with an exception of the brick layers. Two weekends ago, we also went to Omaha, Nebraska to see my friend Mandy who moved out there last fall! Last week was a whirlwind with showings on our house, work life picking up its pace and decisions on the new house. I'm searching for more hours in the day and and all I'm coming up with is less sleep...which those of you who know me well, know that's not good for anyone!

SOLD!

The title of this post says it all...we accepted an offer on our house today! So technically we have inspections and the run around with bank before it's sold, sold; but the buyers are really anxious and excited to be purchasing the house. Interestingly enough, Matt knows the guy and personally showed him the house.

More Progress!

It's nice to see so much progress going on around the house! The kitchen cabinets are installed and look bea-u-tiful! I am so happy with our selection. Being the OCD organize freak I am, I have already been strategizing what I am going to put in each cabinet and each drawer!

Looking at the kitchen from the breakfast nook.

Progress!!

To say we have been busy is a mild understatement. I can't believe today is April 1...seriously?! However, that does mean we are getting closer to the finish line with the house construction. All the drywall is up and completed in the whole house and its awesome!

Standing in the kitchen looking to the front door.

Road Trip

Cabinets are expensive. I have clearly been spoiled having someone who can build anything all these years. So when it came time to select cabinets for our laundry room, I couldn't stomach spending $450 on the "low end" cabinets that had stapled drawers. A collegue of mine told me about this place in Arthur, Illinois that is a huge cabinet factory outlet. Arthur is about an hour and a half from Terre Haute so Matt and I thought it would be worth it to check it out! As we are getting closer, we start to notice lots of road signs like this one.

I have always been intrigued by the Amish lifestyle since I was in the 6th grade; when we got lost in Northern Indiana leaving one of my AAU basketball games. A few wrong turns led us to the middle of nowhere in the pitch black. So anyway,  as we approached Arthur, horse and buggies appeared on the roads as well as the trail they left behind them. The closer we get to town, the more mesmerized I become by all the buggies buzzing around and the horse and buggy parking in every business lot. The Subway had a rail to tie up the horses on! Matt immediately decided that we are going to find an awesome Amish place for lunch!

Back to cabinets...we arrive at the place and wow, it was not what we expected. They had TONS of cabinets. Full kitchens sold as sets, pieces to configure any layout, vanities and then... the clearance room. Naturally, this is where I wanted to start. This clearance room was huge! Cabinets stacked at least 3 high - bases on the right, uppers on the left, at least 10 aisles there were also about 4 aisles in another part that were included in the clearance. There was absolutely NO organization to this. After looking down each row to get a feel of what was available, we were feeling overwhelmed and not sure what to do to find things that matched to give us a complete set. Each cabinet had a sticker that indicated the cabinet style and finish color. I decided that we needed to start writing down this information of ones we liked and how big they were so we could start to find a matching set. After too many hours (I think we were at this place for a total of 4 1/2) we found cabinets we liked as well as a vanity for the hall bath! Here are our gems!

Moving Right Along

Yes, we have commercial grade duct in our house!

There's been a lot of progress and activity at the house over the last few weeks...the showers and bathtubs have been set, the front door was fixed so we now have the transom window in place, master bath cabinets have been ordered, duct work has been installed, etc.

Wall insulation on left - last time seeing wires!

Matt and Justin work at the house on wiring basically every night after they get off  work. The kitchen layout is a big ticket item that we have been asking our builder for since the beginning of the wiring process. He finally brought the lady from the cabinet place out to the house to lay everything out so the wiring could be finished. During the process, he realized that he didn't change the plans after the kitchen was reconfigured causing the refrigerator door to hit the island. So we had to come up with 14 inches to make it work - remember we ordered cabinets before Christmas! So we ended up taking out the fluted pieces from each side of the sink which gave us 6" then the rest from the bedroom. Unfortunately, its the biggest 8" EVER! The bedroom looks tiny now and the integrity of the design with the built in bookshelf was compromised making it look awkward. I'm not really happy with the turn out but at this point there isn't much we can do. I just hope I don't walk into the kitchen or bedroom and hate it daily when we are all moved in. So after the wall was moved and the wiring hooked back up, the electrical inspection took place. They of course, passed with flying colors

Insulation began the next day on exterior walls. The house started to really look different. After a few days of insulating, the drywall arrived. Our whole house was hung with drywall in 1 day. That's right just 1 day. The crew worked until the job was finished, it was really quite amazing! Once the drywall was up, it looked like a really different house and you could really get a feel for room sizes! The father-son duo that is finishing the drywall thinks they will be all done by the end of the week. Flooring should start next week!

We have made a gazillion decisions and still have quite a few more to make!

Front entry with drywall! You can see the transom that is now added.

Panel box the boys worked so hard on!

Garage doors on!

Our bedroom! So excited to see progress!

Snowmass

So it has been a few since I have posted anything. Well, this is mostly due to vacation! Matt and I went with a group of friends to Snowmass, Colorado for a ski trip. We had such a blast. This is our second year in a row going out to ski and I must say, it never gets old.

View from the patio at the house. Absolutely gorgeous!

Flying Tomato!

We got a steal on airline tickets flying into Denver ($120 RT). From there it is about a 3 1/2 hour drive to the house in Snowmass (maybe one day we will spring for the flight to Aspen?). On the roadtrip there, we stopped in Vail to catch the US Open of Snowboarding. We got to see Shaun White hit the half pipe and Matt even got his picture with him! They had all kinds of free "swag" and we loaded up on Cliff Bar samples. Vail is an awesome ski village we really enjoyed our short stop there.

Matt chose not to ski. I think its partly because of the cost and partly because he is like a bull in a china shop out there. I hit the slopes two days and was absolutely amazed by my progress. I started out in the same beginners area I finished in last year. After a couple runs I started getting my confidence and the feeling back. Once I remembered how to stop and turn, I was good to go! We headed down to a green which I quickly mastered after a hand full of times going down. After our lunch break we tried an "easy" blue. I didn't find out it was a blue until the end of the day. Thanks to +Jess Paugh for not telling me because she thought I would freak out! (probably right!)

Boarders and skier!

Hot chocolate and peppermint schnapps!

Day 2 of skiing was a little rougher. We took the chair lift all the way to the top (hoping to see the Maroon Bells, but it was too overcast) and then skied all the way down. Not without a hot chocolate with peppermint schnapps break in the middle. Needless to say, my legs were exhausted. I needed to do weeks of wall sits to be prepared for that workout! It was a blast and I only fell a few times!

The trip home was a small adventure full of flight delays, road closings, missed flights and an extended vacation. That is the short version. The long version starts at breakfast Monday morning when we were scheduled to go home. We were notified that out flight was pushed back two hours to depart Denver at 8:45p.m. which would put us back in Indy around 1:00a.m. Ugh. With the worry of the flight being cancelled and getting stuck in Denver, we all decided we would change our flights to leave Tuesday morning direct back to Indy at 10:00 a.m. It was a "fresh powder" day and we were anxious to get out and ski.  By the time we had 7 people on board with the travel change, there were only 3 seats left on the 10:00 flight - bummer. So we decided to stick with the original travel plan, in the meantime, our flight was changed 2 more times putting it back to its regular scheduled departure time. So we left the house about an 1 1/2 hours after we wanted to, but that just meant we had to cut out the Coors Brewery tour.

Ready for the blue!

As we were making our way toward Denver, we started to see "Road Closed at mile 180" signs. We were forced to get off of I-70 at Vail and were informed the pass was closed due to 30 car pile up! The officer suggested we try to rebook our flight because the road would be closed for at least 3-4 hours. So we hung out in a bar in Vail for the majority of the afternoon, finally getting back on I-70 three hours later. We got our friend Mandee to the airport to catch his 9:35 p.m. flight to Kansas City, however, the rest of us were left in Denver to catch a 6:45 a.m. to Indy via HOUSTON! Needless to say, it was a long few travel days, but the trip was an absolute blast! I can't wait to get back!

Back in Vail.

The trip was most definitely a welcomed break from all the decision making and stress of the house. But now it's back to finishing the electrical and picking out paint. The insulation starts tomorrow and drywall the first of next week.